


Found

by garilin



Series: 10-Word Prompt Fics [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 08:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12602964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garilin/pseuds/garilin
Summary: Allison finds her in the woods one wintery morning.





	Found

Being outside at four in the morning in mid-January is a miserable experience. The cold air seeps through her all four of her layers and into her very bones. The frigid wind burns her cheeks and tears her hair free from her ponytail. The heavy blanket of snow latches onto her feet with every step, making her patrol far longer and far more arduous than she'd expected it be.

She should have let her father buy her those snowshoes.

Truth be told, she shouldn't be out here. There's no reason for her to be. A new body hasn't shown up in days. For once, it may actually have been a mountain lion killing all those people. A mountain lion she saw get brutally ripped apart by a pack of generally-friendly werewolves last week. So, unless Scott, her ex-boyfriend of one year and best friend of five, had somehow managed to lie to her, this entire, miserable experience was an exercise in futility. She should turn around, go home, and spend the evening doing something productive. Like sharpening her knives or replying to her grandmother's last letter. The hills sprawling out in front of her _do_ look awfully daunting.

But Allison cannot ignore how the midnight air buzzes with restless energy. It's probably nothing. She _hopes_ it's nothing, even as her fingers twitch in heady anticipation. The pack deserved a break. They had been cosmically unlucky as long as Allison had known them.

She startles when she sees something scamper through the underbrush ahead, moving too fast for her to identify what it is. Allison pauses in her tracks, hesitant to continue and hesitant to retreat. Her curiosity overrules her frayed nerves.

It turns out to be one of her better decisions.

Not long after, she is forced nearly to her knees by a shrill scream ringing out from every direction. Instinct takes over the moment it cuts out, though she isn't sure whether it's seconds, minutes, or even hours later. Allison draws her knife and runs as quickly as she can manage.

Time stumbles on. The sky becomes more and more orange. Even with long-anticipated danger igniting her veins, Allison still makes distant note of how beautiful the light looks reflected against the snow.

Allison nearly topples over as she shuffles into a small clearing. Lying unconscious in the center is a man, about forty-seven in age. His hair is dark and bushy, his beard stretches down to his bare chest. Tattered brown trousers cover his lower half. Judging by the deep valleys in the snow around him, he'd floundered where he'd fallen for some time before falling still.

A stifled whimper draws Allison's gaze to a girl propped against one of the trees lining the circle. A girl her age who doesn't seem to have noticed Allison yet.

Allison's grip tightens on her dagger. She's prepared to use it if she must.

The girl's painted lips quiver. Her eyes glimmer with a new round of tears. Her hands clutch at the folds of her cranberry-colored gown. Allison can't tell if there's any blood on the garment.

A wretched, dreadful moaning forces her forward, past the man she tries to hope is still alive. As she gets closer, she realizes she recognizes the girl. She's the veterinarian Deaton had hesitantly accepted to his clinic just last week. Lydia Marsh.

Allison halts. Lydia's watery eyes stare through her, unseeing. Allison takes a couple steps back and squats next to the body's head, checking for a pulse. She is unsurprised to find none. He has no wounds. There are no weapons lying abandoned in the snow.

Lydia must not be human. Allison sneaks a glance at the redhead and wonders how Deaton could not have known. Or maybe he had. It wouldn't be the first time he'd elected to not divulge important information. Allison resolves to question him about it another day. _Politely_ , of course. Scott still saw his former employer as a good friend.

Clambering to her feet, Allison covers the remaining distance to the redhead, sitting crisscross a barely-respectable distance diagonal from her. The cold makes her shiver, but she bears it. It is only then that she realizes how severely underdressed Lydia is; all she's wearing is the dress and a pair of boots designed more for fashion than for insolation.

"Lydia?" she tries. No response. "Miss Marsh?" Alright, that was a little odd; they were around the same age, not teacher and student.

Allison shrugs out of her top coat, laying it lightly across the other girl's lap. Lydia moves her arms out from under it and smooths the fabric down her legs. "Lydia?" Allison grabs at her hands and gasps as Lydia shrieks and dives to the side, away from her. She ends up on her back, propped up by her shaking elbows as she stares wordlessly at Allison.

"Lydia?"

"Who-who are you?" she squeaks out.

Allison shifts to a kneeling position and gets her feet under her so she can tackle Lydia if the redhead makes a break for it. "I'm Allison. Allison Argent? I'm a friend of Deaton's."

"Mister Deaton's?"

"Yes, your boss?"

Lydia's face twists into an indignant sneer. "I know who my boss is."

Allison doesn't try to stop the smile from blooming on her face. "That's good. At my last job, I only knew my boss's nickname, which made filling out paperwork after pretty difficult."

Lydia hums in response, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Can you tell me what happened here, Lydia?"

"What happened here?"

The redhead's face begins to even out to that shocked expression from before. Allison quickly diverts the subject. "We didn't know you weren't human. I'm warning you now, Scott's probably going to try to recruit you into the pack. He's the alpha around here."

"The what? Are you on drugs?"

Lydia then makes the mistake of looking to her right. "Oh my god, what...No. No, no, no, n- "

"Lydia! Lydia, look at me!" Allison ordered, tiptoeing closer even as Lydia finally manages to turn her gaze back towards her.

"He--I told him to stop, to leave me alone, but. His eyes, they were...His face was all scrunched up and he roared like some animal and I don't know if he couldn't understand me or if he just wasn't listening but he- "

"Lydia, it's okay. Do you mind if I come sit by you?"

Allison waited with bated breath as Lydia looked over her, scared and uncertain. When Lydia nodded, Allison quickly scampered over and fell into a sitting position beside her. "It's going to be okay," she assured, slowly but firmly clasping one pale hand in hers. She was freezing.

From the sound of it, Lydia had been attacked by a werewolf. 'Omega,' Derek would mutter with equal parts disdain and pity. 'Rogue,' Scott would correct, voice full of sympathy and grief. Stiles would probably make an inappropriate comment about there being one less problem, one less person gunning for them.

"We should go. You'll get frostbite at this rate." If Lydia _could_ get frostbite, that was.

The redhead didn't argue. Lydia needed Allison's help getting to her feet. It was as she was securing her coat around Lydia's shoulders that Allison noticed the bloody scratch going up the inside of her right forearm, though she didn't comment on them. It disappeared with her arm through the sleeve. Allison locked arms with Lydia and started leading her home.

"Why were you out here?"

"I don't know."

Lydia didn't speak again for the rest of the trek, though she did offer nods and grunts whenever Allison identified a tree or bush or, a couple times, a bird. Allison was content that she was staying alert.

Allison's house was on the edge of Beacon Hills proper, her unfenced backyard leading into the forest her and Lydia were now leaving. It wasn't the place she and her parents had moved into when they'd first come to this town six years ago, but she still shared it with her dad. Most nights she wished she shared it with her mom, too.

It was a good thing her dad wasn't in town tonight and wouldn't be for another week. She loved her father, but he was still trying to find a new code. Lydia was a killer, self-defense or no. It didn't help that Allison didn't yet know what she was.

Plus, it would probably be for the better that she didn't ask Lydia to suffer the company of strange men after the events of the night. So, no calling Scott. Malia would bring Stiles. Kira would call Scott _and_ Malia. Erica was an option in theory, but Allison didn't trust that she would be able to keep quiet to Derek or Boyd about it.

They entered through the patio door. Allison ignored Lydia's comment about how dumb it was not to lock it, partly because she was right but mostly because her mind was whirring, trying to think of what to do next. Lydia decided for her when she collapsed in an armchair, nearly dragging Allison down with her.

Allison brought up a chair from the dining room and set it in front of her, then dashed to the bathroom to grab her first aid kit. Lydia got her arm out of the sleeve for her when she saw it.

The lamp flickering on made her startle. "Sorry," Allison apologized, but Lydia waved her off. 

The dimly-lit living room drowned in silence while Allison tended to her. Lydia didn't flinch from the stitches once. Allison didn't comment on how she should have bled a lot more on such a wide and deep cut.

"Why are you doing this?" Lydia asked once she finished.

Allison shrugged. "There are a couple reasons. I believe you. I don't think it's your fault. You need help, I like helping people. I think we could be friends. Pick one."

"I lied to you, earlier," Lydia confessed. "I went out there because I _had_ to, I don't know why, but I found a body. He was there."

Perhaps it hadn't been that mountain lion after all. How shocking. "Do you often feel called to fresh crime scenes?"

Lydia slowly nodded. "It's why I had to move here. I figured, you know, a small town like Beacon Hills..."

"You're not human, you know."

Lydia huffed. "What else could I be?"

"I guess we'll just have to figure it out."

"Are you really that desperate for friends?"

Allison didn't feel the sting. It didn't feel like she'd meant the jab to have one.

So, she admitted, with good humor, "About five minutes ago, I realized all my girl friends are more loyal to their boyfriends than to me."

"Oh, so it's a girlfriend you're after, is it?" Lydia flirted with a confident smirk. Allison couldn't help but blush. It grew worse when Lydia laid the back of her hand across her forehead. "Oh, you're burning up! Maybe we should hose you down out back. That'll cool you off."

"Stop," Allison protested without heat. "Be decent to your host."

"Threatening to kick me out already?"

Allison flicked her nose.

Lydia stood with exaggerated grace. "Call who you need to call. I'm going to find the kitchen and make us some coffee. It's going to be a long day."

**Author's Note:**

> Lydia, stop flirting. You literally just killed someone. Also, Lydia's last name is still 'Martin' in this 'fic. Allison misremembered.
> 
> My words were: buzz, hills, cosmically, brown, fold, cranberry, moaning, chair, hose, decent


End file.
